Flowers is only in his late 30's, but he's been around the block a few times, and he doesn't think much can surprise him anymore. He's wrong. It's a hot, humid summer night in Minnesota, and Flowers is in bed with one of his ex-wives (the second one , if you're keeping count ) when the phone rings. It's Lucas Davenport. There's a body in Stillwater, two shots to the head, found near a veterans' memorial. And the victim has a lemon in his mouth.

Rough Country: A Virgil Flowers Novel

Virgil's always been known for having a somewhat active, er, social life, but he's probably not going to be getting too many opportunities for that during his new case. While competing in a fishing tournament in a remote area of northern Minnesota, he gets a call from Lucas Davenport to investigate a murder at a nearby resort.

Dark of the Moon

Virgil Flowers kicked around for a while before joining the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. First it was the army and the military police, then the police in St. Paul, and finally Lucas Davenport brought him into the BCA, promising him, "We'll only give you the hard stuff." He's been doing the hard stuff for three years now, but never anything like this.

Bad Blood: A Virgil Flowers Novel

One late fall Sunday in southern Minnesota, a farmer brings a load of soybeans to a local grain elevator - and a young man hits him on the head with a steel bar, drops him into the grain bin, waits until he's sure he's dead, and then calls the sheriff to report the "accident." Suspicious, the sheriff calls in Virgil Flowers, who quickly breaks the kid down...and the next day the boy's found hanging in his cell. Remorse? Virgil isn't so sure....

Shock Wave

The thrilling new Virgil Flowers novel from the #1 New York Times best-selling author. The superstore chain PyeMart has its sights set on a Minnesota river town, but two very angry groups want to stop it: local merchants, fearing for their businesses, and environmentalists, predicting ecological disaster. The protests don't seem to be slowing the project, though, until someone decides to take matters into his own hands.

Mad River

Bonnie and Clyde, they thought. And what's-his-name, the sidekick. Three teenagers with dead-end lives, and chips on their shoulders, and guns. The first person they killed was a highway patrolman. The second was a woman during a robbery. Then, hell, why not keep on going? As their crime spree cuts a swath through rural Minnesota, some of it captured on the killers' cell phones and sent to a local television station, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers joins the growing army of cops trying to run them down.

Storm Front: Virgil Flowers, Book 7

In Israel, a man clutching a backpack searches desperately for a boat. In Minnesota, Virgil Flowers gets a message from Lucas Davenport: You're about to get a visitor. It's an Israeli cop, and she's tailing a man who's smuggled out an extraordinary relic - a copper scroll revealing startling details about the man known as King Solomon. Wait a minute, laughs Virgil. Is this one of those Da Vinci Code deals? The secret scroll, the blockbuster revelation, the teams of murderous bad guys? Should I be boning up on my Bible verses? He looks at the cop. She's not laughing.

Deadline: Virgil Flowers, Book 8

In Southeast Minnesota, down on the Mississippi, a school board meeting is coming to an end. The board chairman announces that the rest of the meeting will be closed, due to personnel issues. "Issues" is correct. The proposal up for a vote before them is whether to authorize the killing of a local reporter. The vote is four to one in favor.

Stolen Prey

.Lucas Davenport has seen many terrible murder scenes. This is one of the worst. In the small Minnesota town of Deephaven, an entire family has been killed - husband, wife, two daughters, dogs. There’s something about the scene that pokes at Lucas’s cop instincts - it looks an awful lot like the kind of scorched-earth retribution he’s seen in drug killings sometimes. But this is a seriously upscale town, and the husband was an executive vice president at a big bank. It just doesn’t seem to fit.

Storm Prey: A Lucas Davenport Novel

Very early, 4:45, on a bitterly cold Minnesota morning, three big men burst through the door of a hospital pharmacy, duct-tape the hands, feet, mouth, and eyes of two pharmacy workers, and clean the place out. But then things swiftly go bad, one of the workers dies, and the robbers hustle out to their truck-and find themselves for just one second face-to-face with a blond woman in the garage: Weather Karkinnen, surgeon, wife of an investigator named Lucas Davenport.

Wicked Prey

The Republicans are coming to St. Paul for their convention. Throwing a big party is supposed to be fun, but crashing the party are a few hard cases the police would rather have stayed away. Chief among them is a crew of professional stick-up men who've spotted several lucrative opportunities, ranging from political moneymen with briefcases full of cash to that armored-car warehouse with the weakness in its security system.

Gathering Prey: Prey, Book 25

They call them Travelers. They move from city to city, panhandling, committing no crimes - they just like to stay on the move. And now somebody is killing them. Lucas Davenport's adopted daughter, Letty, is home from college when she gets a phone call from a woman Traveler she'd befriended in San Francisco. The woman thinks somebody's killing her friends, she's afraid she knows who it is, and now her male companion has gone missing.

Silken Prey: Lucas Davenport, Book 23

Very early one morning, a Minnesota political fixer answers his doorbell. The next thing he knows, he’s waking up on the floor of a moving car, lying on a plastic sheet, his body wet with blood. When the car stops, a voice says, "Hey, I think he’s breathing." And another voice says, "Yeah? Give me the bat." And that’s the last thing he knows. Davenport is investigating another case when the trail leads to the man’s disappearance, then - very troublingly - to the Minneapolis police department, then - most troublingly of all - to a woman who could give Machiavelli lessons.

Buried Prey

A house demolition provides an unpleasant surprise for Minneapolis - the bodies of two girls, wrapped in plastic. It looks like they've been there a long time. Lucas Davenport knows exactly how long.In 1985, Davenport was a young cop with a reputation for recklessness, and the girls' disappearance was a big deal. His bosses ultimately declared the case closed, but he never agreed with that. Now that he has a chance to investigate it all over again, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: It wasn't just the bodies that were buried. It was the truth.

Field of Prey: Lucas Davenport, Book 24

The night after the fourth of July, Layton Carlson, Jr., of Red Wing, Minnesota, finally got lucky. And unlucky.

He’d picked the perfect spot to lose his virginity to his girlfriend, an abandoned farmyard in the middle of cornfields: nice, private, and quiet. The only problem was...something smelled bad - like, really bad. He mentioned it to a county deputy he knew, and when the cop took a look, he found a body stuffed down a cistern. And then another, and another. By the time Lucas Davenport was called in, the police were up to 15 bodies and counting.

Invisible Prey

In the richest neighborhood of Minneapolis, two elderly women lie murdered in their home, killed with a pipe, the rooms tossed, only small items stolen. It is clearly the random work of someone looking for money to buy drugs. But as Davenport looks more closely, he begins to wonder whether the items are actually so small and the victims so random; if there might not be some invisible agenda at work here. Gradually, a pattern begins to emerge, and it leads him to...certainly nothing he ever expected.

Broken Prey

The "Big Three" are a trio of inmates locked up in the Minnesota Security Hospital over the years, each a particularly vicious serial killer, each with his own distinct style and propensities. Everybody feels much safer knowing that they're behind bars. Except...there's a new killer on the loose. And his handiwork bears a disturbing resemblance to some of the finer points practiced by the Big Three, details that never even made the papers.

Naked Prey: Lucas Davenport, Book 14

In Naked Prey, John Sandford puts Lucas Davenport through some changes. His old boss, Rose Marie Roux, has moved up to the state level and taken Lucas with her. In addition, Lucas is now married and a new father, both of which are fine with him: He doesn't mind being a family man. But he is a little worried. For every bit of peace you get, you have to pay - and he's waiting for the bill. It comes in the form of two people found hanging from a tree in the woods of northern Minnesota. What makes it particularly sensitive is that the bodies are of a black man and a white woman, and they're naked....

Hidden Prey

Six months ago, Lucas Davenport tackled his first case as a statewide troubleshooter, and he thought that one was plenty strange enough. But that was before the Russian got killed. On the shore of Lake Superior, a man named Vladimir Oleshev is found shot dead, three holes in his head and heart, and though nobody knows why he was killed, everybody - the local cops, the FBI, and the Russians themselves - has a theory. And when it turns out he had very high government connections, that's when it hits the fan.

Secret Prey: Lucas Davenport, Book 9

The company chairman lay on the cold ground of the woods, his eyes unseeing, his orange hunting jacket punctured by a rifle bullet at close range. Around him stood the four executives with whom he had been hunting, each with his or her own complicated agenda, each with a reason not to be sorrowful about the man's death. If he read it in a book, Lucas Davenport thought, it would seem like one of those classic murder mysteries, the kind where the detective gathers everyone together at the end and solves the case with a little speech.

Mind Prey: A Lucas Davenport Novel

John Sandford's acclaimed Prey novels featuring the brilliant Lucas Davenport have plunged millions of readers into the darkest recesses of the criminal mind. Now Lucas has met his match. His newest nemesis is more intelligent, more deadly, than any he has tracked before: a kidnapper, a violator, and a cruel, wanton killer who knows more about mind games than Lucas himself.

Mortal Prey

Years ago, Lucas Davenport almost died at the hands of Clara Rinker, a pleasant, soft-spoken, low-key Southerner, and the best hitwoman in the business. Now retired and living in Mexico, she nearly dies herself when a sniper kills her boyfriend, the son of a local druglord, and while the boy's father vows vengeance, Rinker knows something he doesn't: The boy wasn't the target, she was, and now she is going to have to disappear to find the killer herself.

Certain Prey

Her name is Clara Rinker, a southern woman, trim, pleasant, attractive, and the best hit woman in the business. She isn't showy; she just goes quietly about her business, collects her money, and goes home. It's when she's hired for a job in Minnesota that things become complicated for her. A defense attorney wants a rival eliminated, and that's fine. But then a witness survives, the attorney starts acting weird, this big cop Davenport gets on her case, and loose ends begin popping up faster than on an unraveling sweater

Chosen Prey

An art history professor and writer and cheerful pervert, James Qatar had a hobby: he took secret photographs of women and turned them into highly sexual drawings. One day, he took the hobby a step further and...well, one thing led to another, and he had to kill her. A man in his position couldn't be too careful, after all. And you know something? He liked it.

Publisher's Summary

John Sandford's introduction of Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers in Dark of the Moon was an immediate critical and popular success.

Flowers is only in his late 30's, but he's been around the block a few times, and he doesn't think much can surprise him anymore. He's wrong. It's a hot, humid summer night in Minnesota, and Flowers is in bed with one of his ex-wives (the second one, if you're keeping count ) when the phone rings. It's Lucas Davenport. There's a body in Stillwater, two shots to the head, found near a veterans' memorial . And the victim has a lemon in his mouth. Exactly like the body they found last week.

The more Flowers works the murders, the more convinced he is th at someone's keeping a list, and that the list could have a lot more names on it. If only he could find out what connects them all...and then he does, and he's almost sorry he did. Because if it's true, then this whole thing leads down a lot more trails than he thought it did - and every one of them is booby-trapped.

Filled with the audacious plotting, rich characters, and brilliant suspense, this is Sandford writing at the top of his game.

Very satisfiying--straight ahead clever plotting, spare prose, wonderful dialogue, and narration that made this book come alive. I've read or listened to Sandford's other Virgil Flowers novels and highly recommend this work for those of you who enjoy mystery thrillers.

I have listened to a few other of John Standford's books and this is the best one I have heard so far. It has it all with a great deal of suspense that kept me trying to figure out who was the killer and I was not sure until the end of the book. There was plenty of action as well with the different murders and Virgil's always interesting personal life intertwined into it too. All of this and excellent narrating by Eric Conger made this a very enjoyable listen.

Virgil Flowers has his problems but he manages to sync in on the bad guy eventually and solve the crime. John Sandford is dependably entertaining and I look forward to each new volume in either this series or the Lucas Davenport books, knowing that I will enjoy the time spent with the characters and, if I happen to catch onto the scheme before the end of the book, I still enjoy finding out whether or not I was right. I guess I am not particularly critical--as long as the reader does a credible job, doesn't knock lozenges against his teeth, or mispronounce many words, I'm satisfied. I liked this book a lot and if you are fan of Sandford, you won't be disappointed.

One thing I've learned about book series that are very chronological like both the Davenport and Flowers series, is that once one gets hooked, the easiest thing to do is just start at the beginning and go to the end. Some of the series are better than others, but I just look at them as one long story with different chapters. This Flowers book was well written well enough, the plot was interesting enough, convoluted enough to keep me interested, as have most of the Davenport books. There are spots which could use editing, but as I said, I'm just reading them all. And enjoying the easy ride. Flowers is somewhat like Lucas in his doggedness, and self confidence, but comes from a different and more contemplative POV. The interaction between Davenport and Flowers, from the inception of the Flowers series doesn't really add much in a literary sense, but I think most fans will like their connection.I gave a well-deserved scathing review of Conger's narration in the first Flowers novel. I am happy to say that he has improved greatly since then. This time, while he made no real aural distinction between characters, he was much more expressive, slowed down, and yes! fully enunciated the majority of the words. Now, I can look forward to reading the rest of the series.

On a recommendation by Stephen King, I picked up my first John Sandford book ever. No, it was not anything in "Prey" series. This book was called "Rough Country" and the main character is a law enforcement officer by the name of Virgil Flowers. The mix of suspense and humor (Virgil is a sarcastic one) is exactly what makes for good reading/listening. Also, the narration is flawless. I enjoyed the character enough to find the other books in the series which includes "Heat Lightening". I can't say enough about the series as a whole. It's very entertaining and keeps you hooked.

This is the second Flowers novel I've listened to and I'm not sure that I will listen to a third. I am a big fan of Sandford's Lucas Davenport series and I don't think this track measures up. It wasn't too difficult to see where this story was heading simply by a process of elimination. Flowers is not a bad characterization, he's just not Davenport. This story might have garnered four stars if it weren't for some silliness during the last hour or so of the listen. Sandford fans won't hate this book, but it won't leave you begging for more in the Flowers series.

Eric Conger is invisible as a reader. Which is EXACTLY right. You simply don't notice how good he is and thta means he creates crystal clear window into another perfectly worked John Sandford creation. Virgil Flowers IS NOT Lucas Davenport lite. Davenport, of course, is Sandford's darkly complex mid-western cop... whose complexities sometimes intrude into the narrative a tad too much. Not so Flowers... But I gotta admit I like the way women have their way with him and vice versa. Heat Lighting's a surprising story. And that's what I want in a thriller - surprises. But... but... what's the story on that annoying music that seems to spontaneously interrupt the flow of this story? It's weirdly distracting. Some self-indulgent producer's intruded here. Hope s/he goes away in the next Davenport novel which I cannot wait to listen to.

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